I'm baaaaaack

It's been a long time since I've posted or kept up with what I've been doing, but I'm back. More importantly, I'm back with the intention of keeping up more consistently. So, where did I leave off? Ah yes, my move to Xiamen, in Fujian province, at the end of August, after almost a month of travels.

Xiamen is an entirely different ball game than Songyuan or Tianjin. A LOT of what I'd noticed and posted about in my previous home cities doesn't hold true here, and I attribute that to a couple main factors.

It seems to me that northern China and southern China are very, very different- the accents (northern Mandarin is more pure), the food (northern food is saltier, southern food is sweeter and spicier), the physicality of the people (northern people are shorter and stockier with potbellied men), the general attitude of the people (southern people seem friendlier toward strangers), etc.

Xiamen also has a lot bigger metropolitan area than Songyuan (not Tianjin, but my time there was limited) with a lot more western influence. There is a huge stone export industry here that draws many foreign business people (no quarries though, explain that one to me) as well as a large, well reputed university with several international programs and thousands of foreign students.

These things, as well as some factors more directly related to my school have made my life here significantly different. Stay tuned for details...

cold, bed after baby, families & planning

The Chinese are very averse to cold and they think of sickness, aches and pains and any other physical ailments as cold being in their bodies. For example, when I had cupping done, the woman told me it was to remove the cold wind, and the places where I bruised more heavily were where I had more cold.

This is why they don't drink cold beverages, they don't think you should touch cold things, they never have skin showing until it is ungodly hot, etc. If you are getting sick, they think you need to drink something hot and maybe sit in a sauna to drive out the cold.

A student of mine that I would consider to be very modern and forward/western thinking told me that she gave birth to her daughter in August, so she thought it was sometimes too hot to wear socks. She said she got very sick after that and now her feet bother her regularly as a result of her letting the cold get in them.

Chinese believe that a woman cannot get out of bed after giving birth, she must rest, take care of her baby and keep the cold away since she is weak at that time. Traditionally, her mother in law must come take care of her and she is expressly forbidden to leave the house. That same student said she knows western women are up and about immediately after child birth, but that our bodies must be different. Maybe after all these years of following the practice of staying in bed for a month, it's true and Chinese women's bodies have evolved a little differently, who knows, but somehow I doubt it they could be that different.

Also, apparently abortions are very easy to get in China, which makes sense since everyone is only supposed to have only one child. They don't get a whole lot of sexual/family planning education in school though; I can't remember if I've mentioned it or not before, but I had a 12 year old female tutoring student in Tianjin who didn't know what a period, tampons or pads were, not even the Chinese words. Poor girl is in for an unfortunately surprise, I felt bad for her. I couldn't explain it to her though, I definitely have that "it's not my place" idea ingrained in me. Someone else told me that their teacher gave her class all a book about sex and bodies and such in high school one day and told them all to read it alone.

If Chinese want to have more than one child, I found out they can get a permit and then they don't need to pay the tax. They must go through their employer to get one (can you say awkward conversation? except not, since it's normal here, but it sounds awkward for me). If they have one without a permit, their employer must pay a tax in addition to them, because it means the employer is not in charge of their employees and not taking adequate measures for family planning. They must sign an agreement every year with their employer saying they won't have more than one child. And the government gives them all money for having only one.

Family relationships are also a lot more complicated than I first thought. Chinese call everyone their age "brother" or "sister," and I assumed it was because they don't actually have brothers or sisters. Actually, in the Chinese language, there is a different word for the relationship between every single family member, except for peers (i.e. cousins). So, there is a different word for say your relationship to your mom's older sister versus her younger sister or your dad's sister. I'm not sure why the relationships to those older and younger than you are more specific than those with the family members in your age bracket. Very complicated and interesting though!

sock money

I have a Chinese bank account and I have no idea why. When I came here, I opened one as an alternative to the old man "I keep my money in a sock under my mattress" strategy just assuming that bank accounts worked the same was as in the States. Not so much.

I can't really use my bank card anywhere, especially not in Songyuan because it is such a small city; most businesses only accept cash. Also, bank cards here are Union Pay, which means you can take cash out of most ATMs here with no fee, but they are not Visa, Mastercard, Am Ex or anything like that so you can't use them to buy things online. Not even plane tickets from Chinese travel sites.

So really, all my bank account is here is an alternative place to store my cash. And not accumulate an interest. What I really need to get is a Chinese credit card. I could open an account with an international bank, HSBC is the only one with branches in China and the US, but I've heard they have ridiculous fees and baselines for how much money you need to keep in an account. Also, they don't have a branch in Songyuan or Tianjin.

I still have my American bank accounts and credit cards. My don't really keep any money there though. My plan is to go to my Chinese bank every two months or so, transfer some money into my US accounts and then pay my credit cards from there. I can't pay my American credit card bills from my Chinese account either.

My American credit cards were almost paid off, but I've had to charge things on them while being here since I can't buy things like plane tickets with my Chinese bank account. Also, my international health insurance automatically gets charged to one of them. Unfortunately, these cards aren't for international use, so I get charged a three percent service fee on everything I use them for.

I signed up for a travelers credit card (that's my "almost three" from above) before I left the States, but it was maybe two days before I left and I didn't know my address here, so the card has been sitting at my parent's house. I still haven't successfully gotten mail from them, so my mom was waiting to send it to me. She put it in the mail early this week, so hopefully I get it soon and can avoid the service charges.

I need some exercise.

I'm not a big fitness freak. I haven't been to a gym since college (no joke). I prefer to do fun things that are exercise in disguise, like hiking, biking and Bikram yoga (those are things I did on the regular in Phoenix).

Here in China pretty much all I do is walk a few miles a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. I do play badminton with the other foreigners as well, but that's maybe once a week, we play doubles and about eight or so people show up to rotate in on one court for two hours. It's more of a social activity than exercise.

I can't hike on a regular basis because there is nowhere to hike in or near Songyuan that I've been able to find. All the Chinese I know are aware that I love hiking, so I feel like someone would have told me if there was somewhere close for that.

I haven't been able to bike so far because I don't have a bike and it's been too cold. A friend of mine has an extra one he is going to give me, and it is warming up, so this one will hopefully change really soon.

As far as yoga goes, I was really excited to pick up Bikram here, but that has been a big fail. Bikram yoga is the hot yoga, but it's also humid, and it is a set series of 26 poses. There are other kinds of hot yoga, but Bikram is very specific. The class never changes, so anywhere in the world you take a class it will be the same. This sounds so cool to me, but it is not popular here at all; it's really hard to find.

Tianjin and Songyuan don't seem to have yoga studios, you have to get a membership at a gym and then take a class there. I checked out the gym in Tianjin to do this, but membership was 600 yuan a month and I didn't know how long I was staying so I didn't do it. Here, many of the foreigners go to the gym. The one across the street from my school is 300 yuan for three months and class are a nominal additional fee. Gyms here are much, Much, MUCH smaller with less to offer, but still, it's something.

I asked a Chinese TA to take me with her to a yoga class last week. I had never done yoga other than Bikram, so it was a new experience. Definitely much slower and I didn't really leave with that good "I've just done something healthy for myself" feeling. Also, not understanding Chinese, I had to look around all the time to make sure I was catching what's going on and not copying someone that was doing something wrong.

After class we asked the instructor about a Bikram class in town and she had never even heard of it. She seemed more interested in touching my anchors than trying to talk to me, lol.

As much as I kind of hate it and say it's for suckers, it might be time to take up running. Ugh....

legit writer

I used to really enjoy writing in high school, but I kind of stopped after that. I never kept a diary or anything, but writing helps me sort through things. I think my mom always thought I'd be an English teacher or something, though "I'm moving to China to teach English" might not have been the I-told-you-so moment she hoped for, lol. I've really enjoyed blogging though (in case it isn't obvious from how prolific I've been since starting this).

While I was in Tianjin a friend of mine suggested I write for work too. He introduced me to a friend of his that is a contributor to an expat magazine there. She told me they were looking for a contributor in Tanggu and hooked me up with her editor. The April issue of the magazine was already in the works then, but I chatted with the editor, sent her some samples and now I am officially writing a full page section entitled "Chinese Whisper" for JIN Magazine each month! My focus is helping foreigners adjust/adapt to life in China with a humorous spin. The magazine is no western magazine, but hey, it's a start. The unfortunately thing about this is that the magazine is in Tianjin, and I now live in Songyuan, but I feel like I can fake it for a while.

I submitted my first piece on Monday and I'm quite excited :)

Long Hua Temple

I went with a friend to a Buddhist temple in Songyuan the other day, Long Hua Temple (good dragon temple). All the temples I've been to in China have been pretty similar, but still very cool. This one was actually still under construction, apparently when it's finished it will be the largest temple in Jilin province. A temple isn't just one building, it's a whole compound, I think this one will have maybe ten buildings when it is complete.

The oil thing is so you remember you're in Songyuan. Or at least in my head it is.

So weird to see a temple under construction.

These were really cool, I haven't seen this yet in a temple. There were hundreds of monk statues lining the walls of the main building. Each was different and individually made.

This made me laugh. It makes sense with all the incense and whatnot, but still.

I am always looking for old, traditional things in China, and in my head temples fall into that category (or at least, they should). I have an issue with new things being built to be positioned as old (like the Italian Concession Area in Nankai, Tianjin). Coming from a marketing background I'm always just thinking they build these new things so tourists will think they are old and come and pay to see them. It occurred to me recently that temples are different though, you don't pay to visit them (for the most part). They have gift shops or whatever, but no entry fee. I guess building new temples in the old style is just one way to preserve old culture. And I am too cynical.

TEDA legacy

My replacement arrived in TEDA late Sunday evening. Monday I gave her the rundown on all the teaching she was taking over from me and at night we were able to get my TA to join us for a drink for my last night out.

My replacement is British. She is in her early twenties and has been traveling and doing odd jobs for the past year and a half, mostly around Australia. Australia has always been my dream place to go, but I want to go for an extended period of time not just a few week's holiday, so she was perfect to grill about that.

She had a lot of questions for me about life in Tanggu and general cultural differences in China as well, having never been here before. I feel like I scared her a bit, but hopefully I brought it back to a positive place! As far as life goes, I just stressed that she cannot rely on the TA and must get out on her own. I have been much happier the past few weeks getting out and about by myself, but it took me a while to figure that out. On Tuesday morning before I left, I took her around to all the malls and places she would want to visit regularly and gave her the expat magazines and such that would help her acclimate, so I think (cross my fingers for her) she's set up for success.

St. Patrick's Day

I had to teach all day yesterday, boo. And, turns out the Chinese don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day, which is not a shocker, since they don't really drink. Lucky for me (since it is my favorite holiday, tied with Halloween) the foreigners still do. The Irish bar down the street was still a good time last night. There was a Guinness promo girl there which made me laugh (because I do liquor promotions in the States, including Guinness) and provided me with a lovely hat!

The bad part is that I had to teach this morning too. At 9am. And unfortunately, while delicious, my spicy garlic noodles with mushrooms was not the best hangover food ever. I'd kill for some Spinato's right now...

fog makes me happy

We had actual fog the other day, not just smog. Crazy, awesome, Wisconsin style fog. It was beautiful; love it :)

View from my building on a clear day.

View from my building on a foggy day. Uh...

random pix: around TEDA

Turns out construction scaffolding is made entirely from thing trees bound together with metal twine. Seems safe enough...

Why are all these trees wrapped in twine?

This hotel has been bugging me since I arrived and I finally figured out why.

 

Because it is trying so hard to be this building on the right, that I took a picture of in Venice, Italy last year.

Dying to know what goes on in here... maybe a rapper lives here?

What's up random aviary in the middle of the city?

  

Rooster's just checking out who's disturbing his afternoon nap.

Yay, random little sculpture garden.

 

around Tanggu

My Chinese American friend from Songyuan that is now in Nankai seem to have made a Wednesday tradition of adventures. He came to visit me this week so we walked all over Tanggu. We checked out the football stadium and mall right near my apartment.

Not sure what's with this huge rock climbing wall right outside the stadium, but I'll take it.

Apparently "Pocari Sweat" is a Gatorade like sports drink. Sounds gross to me...

I'm assuming this sculpture will be surrounded by a yet to be finished water feature. This is the second sculpture I've seen around Tianjin with these large, iridescent, metallic metal flowers, so I'm thinking the artist must be a local.

 

Food court place I will definitely be visiting! "Los Party"? Mexican and American?! And a teddy bear?! Done.

 

 Also this one. I love Mochi!

 

 This just cracked me up. It was hanging next to the escalator on the way down. Look out for what exactly?

 

Best mall kids play area. Ever.

 

Love the necklace.

No wait. Scratch that. Love the whole outfit.

more on human contact, independence & leaving the house

Since deciding to come to China I have heard of so many people that have taught abroad and loved it; they found the experience to be fun, fulfilling and all that jazz. And then there are the few I've heard of that were absolutely miserable. I think that in part these people were miserable because they didn't do anything to change it.

I've posted about these things before, but the longer I'm here, especially in Tanggu, the more I realize how much each of them impacts how I feel. Getting out of the house, human contact and some sort of semblance of independence are so important. I had a rough day earlier this week and was feeling really isolated, so it got me thinking on this track again.

The way my working in Tanggu is structured really does not set me up for happy assimilation into the culture and lifestyle here. With my tutoring schedule, the only days I have to leave my apartment building are Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, otherwise all of my teaching is done in an apartment two floors below mine that I use as a classroom. Not having to get out of the building means I do not have to come into contact with people at all, outside of my TA and my students, unless I actively go looking to meet them. And the Chinese are not like Americans, you can't just go sit at a bar by yourself and leave at the end of the night with a bunch of new friends (most of the time), they don't talk to people they don't know. Finally, usually I leave, my TA comes with me. She orders for me in restaurants, tells cab drivers where to go, etc. I don't have to do anything for myself.

The other day it was raining and cold out, my tutoring session outside of the building got cancelled, my TA didn't want to go anywhere to grab food, I didn't feel like going out alone and the guy I met at the Irish bar last week (the only non work related person I know here) didn't answer my text, so I was going a little stir crazy. The next day I got up, went walking for a couple hours; I stopped and got lunch alone, walked to the supermarket and did my grocery shopping alone and took a cab home and was able to tell the driver where I needed to go by myself. I felt exponentially better than the day before. I left my apartment, interacted with new people and could function on my own.

This was also pretty important for me, because my TA left on Wednesday, and she wasn't supposed to be coming back. She was only here on a one month internship and she needed return to university to take her TEM8 (Test for English Majors- Grade 8) and finish class to graduate this spring. Turns out my boss talking her into coming back early next week and staying with me until I leave Tanggu in the next week or two, but the idea of being completely alone was somewhat daunting.

The day I got out by myself actually got even better at night. My TA wanted to get out of the house for dinner, which is extremely rare. We went to a Korean BBQ place, which turns out is a similar concept to hotpot. There is a cooking surface in the middle of the table and tons of different foods and sauces set up buffet style that you go grab and cook yourself. You pay a set price and then you're in; it also includes unlimited beer. I would definitely call this another adventure food situation. None of the food is labeled, in English or Chinese, you just get whatever looks interesting and hope you like it. My favorite thing was very ropey and I was sure it had to have been intestines or something of that nature. It's best to just not think about it!

 

After that, the guy I met at the Irish bar last week that teaches across the street from me texted that he was at the Irish bar again, so I went to go meet him (sans TA) and had a great time there. I met an Irish Engineer and an American guy starting a business here that actually lives about 30 minutes' drive from my parents in the States. They were excited about my "debut" in Tanggu, so naturally shots ensued, and we even got some of the Chinese that work there to hang out with us too. Yay for new friends :)

To top it all off, when I returned home that night, I got on facebook and started chatting with a friend from Phoenix, only to discover that he will be in Beijing (an hour train ride away from me) visiting his sister and her husband for a few weeks. So exciting!

great morning

Today is off to a fantastic start! One of my tutoring student's mothers showed up to watch class last night. Unannounced. For an hour. And she doesn't speak English. Slightly nerve racking, but I wasn't too worried. When my student back came this morning, she brought homemade breakfast for me from her mother! Apparently mom thought class went well (or she felt bad when my TA told her neither of us cook)... delicious.

Then, I got back to my apartment to find my first piece of mail since arriving in China. I get pretty excited by little things (like getting mail), and as if that wasn't enough, I open the package up to find a Kindle! As an avid reader, it is an absolutely perfect gift from a friend. So excited! Now I just need to find some ice cream...

Irish bar solo trip

Last night I went out alone for the first time in China. I went to the Irish bar that we discovered when my friend from Songyuan was in town, that just so happens to have a name very similar to one of my old favorites in Phoenix (Dublin Irish Pub / The Dubliner aka The Dub).

The place was pretty dead when I got there, so I just sat at the bar (so happy Tianjin has actual bars, not just restaurants to drink in), ordered dinner and wrote a bit. They have Irish food, German food, the best pizza in town and now I know they also have a very good Chicken Tarragon.

After a while I struck up a conversation with an older, middle aged foreigner that was obviously hammered but completely harmless and good company. He apparently teaches at TEDA Maple Leaf School, right across from my apartment. Some Korean guys pretending to be Chinese (I don't understand that part, so don't ask) down the bar from us bought us a round and kept us entertained for a while. Then one of the other teacher's high school students came up to him and somehow we got into a conversation about how to pick up foreign girls. This is what happens when bars don't care how old their patrons are and drunk high school teachers can mingle with their sober students, lol. I don't think China has a legal drinking age, and the Chinese don't really drink so that's probably ok and the conversation didn't get too crazy, it just sounds funny.

Everyone I met was really nice, one of the staff even went in back and grabbed his English notes to introduce himself to me and ask me to be his friend. I was able to tell the cab driver where to take me both to get to the bar and to get home in Chinese too, so I left feeling pretty good. If only going out in TEDA weren't so darn expensive.

Tanggu apartment

It has occurred to me that I complained about The Crack Den so much and posted so many pictures and I haven't posted a single one of my new and improved apartment in Tanggu. So, here is Rui Jia in all its glory (except for the master suite, as that is where my TA lives and she was in there when I was taking these).

Street view- I'm in this front building on the street. My living room and kitchen face this way, our bedrooms face a courtyard between buildings. The buildings just past it are part of TEDA International School.

Yep, I have a bigger bed here than I have ever had in my entire life. Now if only it had a Western mattress...

Yay Western bathroom!

We actually haven't even plugged that tv in since we've been here.

Don't ask about the printer on the counter next to the cook top. We don't cook, so it makes sense for us. I had to laugh though, when we moved in, my TA actually asked me if I knew how to use the microwave.

This is our complex from the back; I live in the third building in this picture.

another adventure

The Chinese American teacher from my school in Songyuan recently moved to Nankai, another district of Tianjin City. My last tutoring student cancelled Tuesday night, so with the free evening I headed to Nankai to visit my friend. I hopped the 30 minute lightrail by myself and actually made it there, my first successful solo public transit trip (last time I tried my train got cancelled, the clerk didn't tell me and sold me a ticket to a train the next day instead and my phone died so I couldn't call my TA once I figured it out)! My TA made me a little note with Chinese to show people if I needed help and I almost wanted to safety pin it to my jacket, like a child traveling alone. I ended up not needing it though, because the light rail has automated ticket machines with English and a scrolling sign with English in the cars. Yay for independence.

In Nankai, my friend and I had dinner at a crazy big restaurant that was actually three restaurants in one, a French place, a Russian place and a German place, each with its own floor. Nankai has a lot of little pockets that are heavily influenced by different cultures; they're called concession areas and are products of the war. Dinner turned out to be an overpriced, under-delivering bust but that's alright. I tried duck liver there, I'm not sure I'd say it competes with frog or shark fin soup on the crazy food scale though.

After dinner we wandered around Nankai a bit and headed to the expat bar right near the university where he teaches for cocktails and a rousing game of Battleship! My friend is not really a drinker, but we ended up staying up until 3am talking. He seems to have made it his mission to solve all the questions in my life and find me a profession that's going to make me happy. More on that and my motives for coming to China in a future post (how has that not come up yet?).

The next day we got up early and headed to the aquatic park. This was not a water park in the traditional American sense. It is more like a city park designed around water features. It's very large with a themed island for each season, a zoo, a Bonsai garden and an amusement park for children. Naturally it would be much more beautiful in summer, but it was still a cool place to visit. I don't think my friend could imagine how it would look otherwise, so he did not much appreciate it.

transient art in the park

Clearly, the park was very crowded. Also, to be fair, school was in session, so no kids.

After the park we headed to the Ancient Culture Street to explore. This turned out to be very cool. It's basically a street full of traditional Chinese shops and vendors. There's definitely a lot of commercial, touristy kitsch and crap, but there is a lot to look at and not all of it is completely fake. If you want a knock off purse though, this wouldn't be a bad place to look though.

While we were there, we stumbled upon the Queen of Heaven Temple. This was a small courtyard area full of little rooms to look into, each with some kind of deity or figure to pray or pay homage to. Each had a large incense pit in front.

Then it was time to head back to the university to grab lunch with a group of the foreign professors that meets every Wednesday. Turns out most of the other foreigners that teach with my friend at the university are elderly retirees and, oddly enough, Mormon. Two of them are even from Chandler, AZ. They all like to stay on campus and after talking to them for an hour and watching them in action at a restaurant in China I'm alright never seeing these people again. They're nice enough, but they don't go out and try new things, they don't try to follow Chinese customs at all and they seem to be pretty sheltered here. And they're perfectly ok with that.


After lunch we had just enough time to go check out the world's fourth largest Ferris wheel, and the only one built over a bridge! Kind of crazy to see cars driving right along next to you as you ride.